


Remedial Transfiguration, Year Six

by orphan_account



Category: Winner (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Harry Potter Setting, Bloodplay, Breathplay, M/M, Rivals-turned-mostly still rivals, minor D/s
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-25
Updated: 2015-12-25
Packaged: 2018-05-09 08:25:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,027
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5532479
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>People say Slytherins and Hufflepuffs can never be friends. Seunghoon and Taehyun are determined to prove them right.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Remedial Transfiguration, Year Six

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted for win_derland.
> 
> Additional warnings for minor bloodplay/breathplay and minor D/s.

****Everything comes to a head in Transfiguration, but it’s been building up for days.

On Monday, Taehyun goads Seunghoon into calling him a prick, and takes five points from Hufflepuff for insubordination.

On Tuesday, Taehyun chokes on his pumpkin juice. Within seconds, his hair turns a bright, excited Hufflepuff yellow; when he tries to spell it back, the other half turns itself badger-black.

On Wednesday, a blind item appears in the Daily Prophet accusing a certain underage Chaser of ingesting Hippogriff dung before matches in an effort to magic himself lucky.

On Thursday, Seunghoon asks Taehyun if he’s been given the Dark Mark yet, or if it’s just his mother.

On Friday, Taehyun flings himself bodily across the Transfiguration classroom, smashing Seunghoon’s nose and his term project, too.

It's the second time this year. No one is particularly surprised.

 

They’re given three weeks remedial detention - two because of the blood, and another because Seunghoon immediately protests that he’ll miss Quidditch practice. He tells Jinwoo he knows it’s just because Professor Kim has had it out for him ever since he made Hufflepuff’s lead Chaser, _everybody_ knows she’s Gryffindor-biased. Jinwoo suggests that maybe she doesn’t like it when he gets into fistfights with Taehyun every other class. They agree to disagree.

“These will be _peaceful_ detentions,” says Professor Kim, her arms folded across an ample chest. “You will not destroy my classroom. You will not destroy my desks. You will not destroy my experiments. You will not destroy my personal effects.” She glances at Seunghoon, who’s aghast - it’s not as though he _meant_ to Vanish her Gryffindor banners, they just happened to be in the way of Taehyun’s fat head.

Professor Kim sighs. “I just don't understand, boys. You used to get along so well. I just don't understand.”

“It’s not my fault he’s got brains like a Flobberworm-” Taehyun starts.

“Would you like it to be four weeks, Mr. Nam?” Professor Kim asks pleasantly.

Taehyun shuts up. Seunghoon smirks. Taehyun sends a stinging jinx under the table. Seunghoon lunges. They get four weeks detention.

 

They lose Saturday’s Quidditch match (Ravenclaw - 190, Hufflepuff - 140), but Seunghoon scores eight goals and gets his picture in the Daily Prophet. The columnist says he’s almost certain to be professionally drafted after he graduates. Seunghoon wonders who leaked his meeting with the Magpies. Seunghoon wonders how upset his father will be.

He _Incendio_ s his copy of the paper, which stops any eager-eyed first years from approaching him with quill and parchment. “Be nice,” Jinwoo chides, but he’s been saying that for _years_.

Taehyun manages to catch him in the Great Hall. He’s distracted, trying to figure out a good excuse for not finishing his History of Magic homework: _I was busy defending the Quidditch Cup, don’t you care about honor among men_ probably won’t cut it, especially given that their professor is a vampire. He’s decided he’ll just take the detention, by now he has enough to last him well past graduation, when Song Minho grabs his arm.

He tenses, just for a moment, and Minho lets his hand fall. He’s still grinning.

“Your team fucked up, Lee,” Minho says, brandishing his own copy of the Prophet. “Your team fucked up, and you owe me six Galleons.”

“It’s not my fault you can’t call a bet to save your life,” Seunghoon says, amused. He and Minho have always been friendly, despite the latter being both a Slytherin and Nam’s second in command. He flicks his eyes towards Taehyun, who watches them through narrowed eyes. “How’s things, Nam?”

“Fine,” Taehyun says shortly. His nose is still crooked from the time Seunghoon punched him last year, but Seunghoon doesn’t particularly care. Seunghoon usually tries to ignore Taehyun’s bait- _you’re a Lee, act like one_ \- but sometimes it's too hard to resist. 

“He’s lying,” Minho says, wrapping an arm around Taehyun’s shoulders, “we lost the Gobstones tournament against Gryffindor, 60 - 20.”

“You still play?” Seunghoon asked, surprised. “I thought you’d given that up.” It’s a rude question - Minho makes a slight choking noise beside him - but not necessarily meant to be cruel. Taehyun’s expression, angry, embarrassed, ugly, is just a bonus.

“Yes,” Taehyun says, his voice clipped. “I wanted to stop last year, but,” he shrugs, “family tradition, and all that.”

There’s a volume written in the junction of those two words, _family tradition_. It makes Seunghoon suddenly, inexplicably wants to move forward, to reach for that familiar hurt like moth to a flame. He remembers, when they were younger, _Incendio_ -ing one of Nam’s perennial Howlers ( _third in your classes, why won’t you try_ harder _; friends with a Lee, Taehyun, how_ could _you_ ) and stroking his hair until the sobs stopped. He finds himself almost reaching out for Taehyun.

But he can’t do that, now, because this isn’t third year anymore, and so he asks, “Do we have detention tonight?”

“What?” Taehyun says, suddenly suspicious. “Yeah, of course we do. Transfiguration classroom, eight o’clock.”

“Thanks.” Taehyun gives him a terse nod; Minho, a slight smile.

Seunghoon watches them ascend the stairs together, Minho grabbing Taehyun’s arm to keep from slipping in between the moving staircases, Taehyun throwing back his head in barking laughter. His body looks like a jackknife, made to maim and kill. Seunghoon’s ashamed of himself, that he almost forgot it.

 

They were friends, when they were younger. Before the War, before the Nams turned and the Lees marshalled the Light, they had been friends.

Third year, they said goodbye on the Hogwarts Express platform and promised to write. Next September, they came back with new scars and new sorrows and their parents’ hands clutching their shoulders, holding them back.

Even after the War ended. Even after the Dark Lord fell. _Don’t talk to that Lee boy, stay away from the Nams. You know what they did._

 

Seunghoon arrives at the Charms classroom a quarter to eight, only to find Taehyun already waiting. They look at each other, both a little unsure. The memory of Taehyun’s fists is making Seunghoon skittish.

Glaring at Taehyun, he asks,“Is Professor Kim here?”

Taehyun gives him a long, suspicious look. “She has to supervise another detention. She said she’ll be back in a second, though.”

“Jesus, Lee,” Seunghoon says, “I’m not going to kill you.”

“You could do a lot worse than kill me,” Taehyun says darkly. Something twists in Seunghoon’s gut, something dark and wicked. He swallows, and then ducks his head, hoping to all god Taehyun hadn’t noticed.

Professor Kim arrives at that moment, thankfully, saving Taehyun from pursuing that thought further.

An hour passes, and neither of them say another word. Professor Kim is drooling into a copy of the latest Witch Weekly, her snores fluttering the pages. Seunghoon might have found it endearing if she hadn’t just assigned them six inches of parchment on the evolution weather-based transfiguration (1200-1600). There is nothing more boring, as it happens, than the evolution of weather-based transfiguration (1200-1600), except maybe six inches of parchment on them.

Taehyun, the prat, is working diligently. His quill hasn’t stopped scratching since the professor set them to it. He’s making little doodles in the margins. He used to do that in Seunghoon’s essays, he remembers, little jokes and dirty poems Seunghoon would have to spell away.

“Stop looking at me,” says Taehyun, not looking up. “We’re only here because of you.”

Seunghoon feels a fight coming on. “Shut up. We’re only here because of _you_.”

“You wouldn’t understand, your parents _expect_ you to fail,” Taehyun huffs. “A Nam isn’t supposed to be in detention.”

Seunghoon looks at him. There’s a smile on his face, small and bitter. The words are there before he can stop them: “Wasn’t your dad a Muggle?”

Taehyun freezes. The smile slides off Seunghoon’s face, centimeter by centimeter - even _he_ can tell he’s gone too far. He clears his throat and turns his face back towards his parchment - as good an apology as Taehyun will ever get.

“What are you working on?” Seunghoon asks instead, forcing himself into nonchalance. Taehyun, his stupid fat head already bowed towards his stupid blotchy partment, doesn’t look up. His mouth is taut, though. Seunghoon, well-versed in Taehyun’s tics, can read him like a book.

He twitches his wand, just a centimeter, and Taehyun’s ink bottle begins to wobble. Taehyun looks at it, confused. And then he looks at Seunghoon. And then his eyes narrow.

“Fuck you, Lee,” he says, any trace of apology gone.

“Manners, Nam,” Seunghoon says. He moves his wand. The ink begins to shake.

“ _Lee_ ,” Taehyun says, his voice a little louder now, “I’ve been working on this for an hour.”

“Keep your voice down, Nam,” Seunghoon says, “you’ll wake the professor.” Splotches of ink begin to fly from the bottle, some landing precariously near Taehyun’s parchment.

He doesn't know why he does this to Taehyun. Maybe because Nam gives as good as he gets. Maybe because if left alone, Nam could do so much worse. Maybe he likes the way Nam’s cheeks flame up and his eyes get all scrunched, angry, frustrated, almost beyond control.

It appears as though Taehyun is very close to reaching over the table to throttle him. “What do you want, Lee?”

“Show me what you’re working on.”

“Why?”

“Because if you don’t I’ll tell the Professor you punched me and get 20 points from Slytherin.”

Taehyun’s jaw tightens, and Seunghoon can’t tell if it’s the candlelight wavering, or if his fingers twitch towards his wand. He feels a quickening in his gut: _try it, Nam, try it one more time-_

“You should have been a Slytherin,” Taehyun says softly. It doesn't sound like an insult.

Neither Taehyun nor Seunghoon speak. The classroom is silent, save for the torch-oil hiss, and the professor’s congested huffing, and Taehyun’s short, angry breath.

Slowly, Taehyun slides the paper across the desk. Something like triumph makes Seunghoon chest swell. _I wonder_ , he hears the pureblood part of himself murmur, _if this is what Imperio feels like._

_Dear Mother,_

_Thank you for telling me about Cousin Son’s sentencing hearing. I regret that I will not be able to attend. I would appreciate if you refrain from owling my professors. as I have already inquired._

_I understand your feelings, but I still don’t feel as though my testimony would have made any difference. I was thirteen. I know what I saw, but, Mother, I was thirteen._

Without a word, Seunghoon slides the paper back to Taehyun. The Slytherin takes it stiffly, and very carefully puts it back into his bag. They don’t speak for the rest of the lesson.

 

That night is where it starts. Some people can blame compulsion; others, the irresistible call of fate, bound to earth in prophecy. But there are no prophecies waiting for Seunghoon. Instead, just this: Taehyun sneered, and Seunghoon liked the way his skin flushes pink when he was reaching for his wand. 

 

“Take the weekend off,” the Captain says.

Seunghoon stares at the Captain. The Captain stares back.

This is - unprecedented.

After another staring match (the Captain wins), he asks, tentatively, “Am I in trouble?” He hasn’t gotten a free weekend since he made Lead a year and a half ago. He doesn’t know what to _do_ with a free weekend.

“It’s a _gift_ ,” comes the Captain’s terse reply. “Christ. You earned it, your performance last match. Go do whatever it is sixteen year olds do. Skip rope. Climb a tree.”

“You’re a year older than me.”

“Yeah,” the Captain says, “and if I see you anywhere near the Pitch I’ll hex your balls off.”

“Thanks, Seungyoon.”

“Don’t call me Seungyoon.”

And so Seunghoon has two free days, and so Seunghoon has no idea what to do with himself.

His mother never signed his Hogsmeade form (“who knows what kind of _Dark creatures_ are lurking near the Hog's Head?”), so that’s off. His friends offer to stay behind, but Seunghoon can tell they only half mean it. He laughs and shoos them towards the village. The first and second years left behind stare at him, wide-eyed, until he scrunches his face and they scurry away.

He spends half of Saturday trying to catch up on homework, but by lunch Arithmancy problems are swirling on the page and his head has gone all fuzzy. He wants to be _flying_ , that’s what he was made to do. And if that excuse gets him out of doing one more blasted homework problem - well, he’ll take it.

The pitch is mercifully empty of the Captain or anybody else. Seunghoon hurls himself into the air and immediately catches the wrong end of an upward draft. He shifts into a Blijk Glide, propelling himself higher and higher and higher. He rises, up past the goalposts, up past the spectator boxes, up towards the empty sky, up towards a world free from homework and Houses and Dark wizards and Dark magic.

_You could do a lot worse than kill me._

The broom lurches downwards, a sudden jerk towards the ground. He hisses, urging the broom back upwards; it jostles and bucks as it regains its position. His stomach is heaving, and his heart is pounding. It’s the first time he’s lost control in years.

He'll never get a Magpie contract like this. 

Seunghoon twists through the air for what seems like hours. He runs through Seungyoon’s drills, and then his advanced broom-work, and then, willing his mind silent, Seunghoon lets his body take over, a machine, a precise instrument good for this, just this. He tries, as hard as he can, to outfly his thoughts, to outfly any memories waiting for him on the ground.

He doesn't notice the crowd lingering near the stands, students straggling back from Hogsmeade, their mouths hanging open, their spines tight with jealousy. He doesn't notice the smear of silver and green and jackknife, an aberration in the crowd. He doesn't notice anything except the air, and his broom, and the sky, bright and blue and streaked with stars, closing in around him.

 

That night, Taehyun avoids his eyes, which is perfect, because Seunghoon was already planning on doing the same.

Professor Kim has set them on extra homework for this week’s lesson, bodily transfiguration. It’s not difficult stuff, just fingernails and hair color, but Seunghoon keeps fucking up the wand movements, his wrist all jerky and straight when it needs to be willowy. He's never been good at this part of magic, the actual...  _magic_ part. Taehyun, who likes to think of himself as a prodigy, can only see watch somebody fuck up so many times before his stupid Prefect instincts kick in. He throws down his wand and marches to the other side of the desk.

“Give me your arm,” he demands, holding out his hand. Seunghoon gives him a _look_. Taehyun rolls his eyes. “Shut up, you oaf. Do it.”

He used to do this a lot, back when they were younger. Seunghoon has no head for magic, just Quidditch. Taehyun got Seunghoon through the first three years of Transfiguration, Charms, too. He's failed the last two.

Taehyun grabs Seunghoon’s wrist, and slowly guides his arm through the correct motions. “You want to let your hand fall _here_ ,” he says, bending his joints, “and then,” he jerks Seunghoon’s hand upwards, maybe a bit harder than he needs to, “let the spell fall off _here_. See?” He motions down at Seunghoon’s other hand, which now sports rainbow-colored fingernails. “You just have to pay attention to your wrists.”

Seunghoon doesn’t speak. He’s still, and Taehyun seems horrified that he’s still holding on to Seunghoon’s arm. He drops it as though he was holding a brand.

Seunghoon mutters a hurried ‘thank you’, rubbing at the place on his arm where Taehyun touched him. They sit in silence for the rest of the lesson, aside from mumbled, awkward incantations. When they leave two hours later, Seunghoon’s fingernails are still flashing flashy, neon-bright rainbows.

 

“How was detention?” Jinwoo asks sympathetically as he enters the Hufflepuff common room.

“I don’t want to talk about it,” Seunghoon grumbles, storming down the stairs and into their bedroom. He flops down on his bed, spelling the door shut - Jinwoo can unlock it if he wants to, or else he can sleep in the common room, Seunghoon doesn’t really care.

His heart doesn’t stop racing; it hasn’t, ever since the detention. He looks down at his wrist, looks at place Taehyun touched him. He’s almost surprised to see that there’s no mark. It still burns.

Seunghoon dreams about a duel in the sky. He dreams about shooting lightning from his fingertips and setting the Quidditch pitch on fire. He dreams about Imperio and a dark green spell which lights up all the clouds. He dreams about Nam, about hurling him towards the Hogwarts grounds; he dreams about Taehyun, about shoving his knee into the halfblood's back and whispering threats into his ear.

He wakes up with his hands knotted in his sheets, hard and flushed and breathing fast.

 

It’s the least they’ve fought since they were thirteen years old and the Dark Lord was just a minor Ministry official, spewing shit without much of an audience. Their teachers seem relieved at not having to spend half their classes disentangling the two of them from fights and duels and spellwork sabotage. Their fellow classmates seem pretty happy too, come to think about it. Maybe, Seunghoon reflects, this is why he doesn’t have more friends.

They still glower at each other across the Great Hall, and drop insults in between classes. When Taehyun trips and falls on his way into lunch, Seunghoon howls with laughter at the way his cheeks flame red. When Seunghoon gets twenty points from Hufflepuff for forgetting his Transfiguration homework again, Taehyun grins at him from the front row, his smile pointed like a knife. It’s their routine, to a T.

And yet: when Taehyun smiles, there’s a different sort of light in his eyes, not exactly malice, but something just as wicked; when Seunghoon checks his shoulder, hard enough to bruise, there’s a ferocity in the movement which was never there before. There’s something building in the air, something sharp and acrid, and it’s just on the tip of Seunghoon’s tongue but he can’t quite taste it, not yet.

 

They play Slytherin on Sunday. They’re two matches ahead, but Slytherin has won their last three. The Captain is getting worried.

“If we don’t win the Quidditch cup this year,” he promises, “I will go to Azkaban, give some poor lifer my wand, have them Avada Kedavra me, and then I will spend the rest of eternity haunting all of you so much you won’t be able to _shit_ without me watching you.”

“Isn’t that kind of how it already goes?” Hanbin asks. Seungyoon isn’t amused.

The crowds are a wash of silver and gold. Seunghoon spots Jinwoo and the Captain’s friend Soojung in the crowd, madly flapping yellow and black pennants. He sees Taehyun in the Slytherin bleachers for a moment until he’s lost in a sea of gold and silver and green. He doesn’t look that way again.

In the end, the Captain had nothing to be worried about. The Slytherin Keeper is good, but Seunghoon is better. In the background he can hear the commentator screaming “and _THAT’S_ what gets you a Magpie contract, folks” as he slams the Quaffle into the goal, but he’s too busy being mobbed by his teammates to listen.

Here, in the air, with his kit heavy on his back and his broom steady beneath him, he forgets about his family. He forgets about the War, and his House, and Nam Taehyun, Nam Taehyun’s eyes, Nam Taehyun’s lips, bruised and bloody. He’s nothing up here, not even Lee Seunghoon, and it feels good to not be anybody, if only for a few hours.

Without thinking about it, he scores five more goals. Slytherin catches the Snitch. They still win by twenty.

Taehyun catches him on his way back to the Common Room. The corridors are deserted, and all his teammates have run ahead to get to the victory party. Seunghoon likes to linger in the showers, take his time cleaning off his broom and putting away his equipment. He likes to walk back to the castle, up the winding hill, reacquainting himself with the earth. He has to remind himself sometimes that he’s not in the air anymore, and he’s Lee Seunghoon once more.

Taehyun is there near the dungeons. He’s got his stupid shiny Prefect badge pinned to his robes, and Seunghoon’s mood instantly darkens. When Taehyun’s in that smarmy authoritative mood, there’s no stopping him.

“Lee,” Taehyun drawls, as if on cue. “Out for a late night stroll?” He’s smirking. Seunghoon wants to tell him it makes him look ugly but it doesn’t, he hates him but it really doesn’t, it just makes Seunghoon want to kiss the sneer off his lips. “Given the hour, I’d say that’s - what, twenty points from Hufflepuff?”

“What the fuck, Nam,” Seunghoon says, outraged. It’s not so much the points - Seunghoon has lost so many for Hufflepuff, twenty is almost nothing - but the _principle_ of the thing. That’s what he’ll tell himself later, at least.

“Backtalk?” Taehyun drawls, all Slytherin scales. “Let’s make that fifty, alright?”

“ _Taehyun_. Stop.”

Taehyun grins at him, narrow and cruel. “Say please.”

It’s muscle memory that has Seunghoon drawing his wand, but it’s something else entirely that has him pressing it against Taehyun’s throat, right up against the windpipe and so close he can feel the way Taehyun scrabbles for air but can’t - quite - _breathe_.

“What was that, Nam?” He doesn't recognize his own voice.

“Say…” Taehyun gasps, his voice pitched high in a way that goes straight to Seunghoon’s dick, “ _please_.”

There’s a spell on Seunghoon’s lips, and they both know it. It’s different, too, the look Taehyun is giving him, even as his breath comes quick and shallow, not so much _do it_ as _would you?_ There’s a world of difference separating those two small words but for the life of him Seunghoon can’t figure out what it is.

Seunghoon _moans_ , and Taehyun freezes. His eyes flick downwards, a minuscule sweep from Seunghoon's lips to down, below his waist. A short exhale _: oh_. He opens his mouth, to - jeer, taunt, laugh, _win_.

"Lee-" 

There's really no time for a better plan: Seunghoon punches Taehyun, right in the same place he broke his nose just a year ago. Taehyun hexes him, but the blood makes his accent thick. He's shaking, too, Seunghoon deflects him easily, and leaves him there to bleed. 

 _Fuck_.

 

There’s a wand at his throat, in his dreams. There's a wand at his throat, but Nam Taehyun is kissing him, and it doesn't really matter. 

Taehyun bites down on Seunghoon’s lip so that he draws blood. Seunghoon could _Crucio_ him for that, he could make Taehyun _hurt_ for that, and the thought is so arousing he lets out a low, growly moan against Taehyun’s mouth. He wants to hurt Nam Taehyun, and, judging from the erection pushing against his leg, Taehyun would let him.

The thought that Taehyun would let him do - _this_ , push him down and hold his wand to his throat and whisper that spell, for real this time, as he fucks him into the flagstones, makes him groan with want. Taehyun squirms beneath him, letting out a little whine, and Seunghoon grinds his hips against Taehyun’s until the Slytherin is panting like he needs it, like he’ll do anything for it, like he’ll let Seunghoon do _anything_ for it.

He comes with a shudder, and Taehyun isn’t far behind him, arching his neck so that the wandtip cuts off his breath right as his hips buck against Seunghoon just so.

“I-” Taehyun begins, as undone as Seunghoon has ever seen him, the most beautiful he’s ever seen him. “I-” Seunghoon leans forward suddenly, unable to help himself. He leans forward and licks the smear of his own blood against Taehyun’s lips, red like a Muggle girl’s lipstick. It tastes like copper and sweat.

Seunghoon’s wand lowers towards the ground. They stare at each other, still out of breath, still panting. Taehyun’s cheeks are flushed crimson, and he’s guessing his look the same.

Seunghoon wakes up before Jinwoo, and feels like a second year spelling his sheets clean. The next day Taehyun’s nose is still bruised. Seunghoon finds he doesn’t really care.

 

They stare at their desks during detention. The room is silent, save for Professor Kim’s slow, shallow snores, and Seunghoon’s heartbeat, hammering in his ears.

He looks over at Taehyun, just once, to find the Slytherin gazing back at him. Something in his look makes Seunghoon’s mouth go dry.

“This was excellent, boys!” Professor Kim enthuses as she escorts them out of the classroom, “absolutely fantastic! Whatever it is that’s making you behave so _well_ , keep it up!”

Neither of them can look at each other. Professor Kim beams.

 

They have double Potions with the Slytherins on Tuesday morning. Normally Seunghoon would beg it off - “I have to practice for next month’s, Professor, oh, of _course_ I think our chances are good this year, with a Head of House like you how could we fail!” - but Jinwoo frogmarches him to the dungeons before he can think about slipping away.

“I’m not tutoring you in Potions anymore,” he says, ignoring Seunghoon’s protests, “you go to class and you fail on your own terms.”

Seunghoon throws himself into his seat. “When the Magpies sign me, I'm not getting you season tickets.”

Jinwoo smiles serenely. “I've always been more of a Cannons man.”

The rest of the class arrive in clusters, still yawning from breakfast. Minho and Taehyun come in moments before the professor. Minho guides Taehyun to the seats in front of the Hufflepuffs - he and Jinwoo are the top Gobstones players in the school, and Seunghoon isn’t looking forward to hearing about their tournament strategies for the next hour and a half. He shoots a glance at Taehyun, who slouches down in his seat, already bored. He doesn’t look at Seunghoon.

“Memory potion, page 235.” Professor Baek tells them. “In exactly one hour I will be taking a memory from each of you. You can have it back if you’ve made the remedy correctly. Go.”

Minho gives Seunghoon a wide smile. “Let’s try not to fuck this up.”

Memory potions are easy enough, even for Seunghoon. This one, a simple amnesiatic remedy, doesn’t ask for much beyond careful stirring and a few finely plucked Jobberknoll feathers. Seunghoon and Minho have worked on many a potion together, and while neither of them have promising Healing careers lined up, they haven’t managed to blow up _this_ classroom yet.

“So,” Minho says, voice barely audible over the bubbling potion, “I hear you and Taehyun are making quite the couple.”

Seunghoon almost drops half a vial of hellebore syrup into the cauldron. “ _What_.”

Minho grins, leaning forward. The cauldron fumes shade his face bright green. “Come on, Lee, give it up - secret rendezvouses in the Transfiguration classroom? Sniping at each other over the dulcet snores of Professor Kim? People will talk.”

Minho, Seunghoon realizes, is joking. He schools his face into a smile - _why does he have to make himself smile_? “Ha,” he says. No, that doesn’t sound right. “Ha,” he tries again.

Minho’s grin is wide and shit-eating. “They say hate turns to love so quickly.”

At the next table over, Taehyun has dropped three rosemary petals in the cauldron. Strange orange fumes waft upwards. Jinwoo looks faint.

“ _Ha_ ,” Seunghoon agrees emphatically.

Minho has started to stare at him. Seunghoon realizes that he was a little _too_ enthusiastic. “- Oh my god,” Minho says.

“Look,” Seunghoon says, a little manic. “The potion is turning blue. Is it supposed to do that?”

“ _Oh my god_.”

Seunghoon waves his hands in the air like a madman. “ _Professor_ ,” he yells, “our potion is blue.”

Professor Baek doesn’t look up from his Daily Prophet. “It’s called the Blue Memory Charm.”

Minho stares at Seunghoon, eyes narrowed and suspicious and _all-seeing_. Seunghoon stares at the potion, aquamarine and perfect, and wonders if it’s potent enough to poison Minho. Taehyun stares at Seunghoon, but Seunghoon doesn’t see that.

“Seunghoon, are you serious?”

Seunghoon tosses a handful of decapitated caterpillars into the cauldron. “No. _No_ , Song,  I’m not talking to you about this.”

“I’m your friend, Seunghoon,” and now Minho is serious, more serious than Seunghoon has ever heard him, and it’s bloody _terrifying_. He leans in close, so that only Seunghoon can hear: “Seunghoon, you can talk to me.”

His face is open and honest. Maybe he's a Veela, or has Veritaserum running through his veins, because for a second Seunghoon wants to tell him - about the classroom, about the Quidditch match, about Taehyun, Taehyun, Taehyun. It would be such a relief, he hears the least-rational part of himself coo, to just _talk to someone._  He opens his mouth, and Minho smiles encouragingly.

Jinwoo chooses that moment to explode their cauldron. The classroom fills with orange fumes, and their skins all glow a toxic neon for the rest of the afternoon. It’s worth it, to stop Minho’s questions.

He watches Seunghoon, though, and Seunghoon can feel his eyes on him for the rest of the night, even as he lies awake, willing sleep to finally come.

 

“What do you call it,” he asks Jinwoo, “when you want to fuck somebody but also Crucio them a little?”

Jinwoo slowly moves down the bench away from Seunghoon.

 

Taehyun doesn’t look at him the rest of the week. Not on Wednesday morning when they pass each other on the way to breakfast, or on Thursday when they're sitting two tables away from each other in the library, or even on Friday night when they're studying in the Great Hall and Jinwoo makes them sit with the Slytherins so he can compare Gobstones notes with Minho.

Seunghoon is waiting for the other shoe to drop. Taehyun knows, now, that Seunghoon wants him ( _wants_ him? It sounds like the back cover of those romance novel his great-aunt reads, but it's certainly closer to  _want_ than  _love_.) A few weeks ago, even the slightest hint of leverage would have Taehyun crowing Seunghoon's secrets to the whole Great Hall. Now, he barely looks up when Seunghoon sneers his name.

He wants Taehyun to look at him, just look at him, and not be able to tear his gaze away. He wants Taehyun, he realizes, beyond bloodlines and houses and Dark Marks. It’s not a loving kind of want, but instead the kind which will leave Taehyun bruised and aching and spitting insults at Seunghoon even as he begs for more.

It’s not what a Lee should want, not what a Light wizard should want, but maybe Taehyun was right. Maybe he should’ve been in Slytherin.

 

Professor Kim leaves them to check on another detention with a stern “I’ll be back”. As the door clicks shut, Seunghoon's back straightens. If he was any more tightly wound he could be one of the castle’s suits of armor.

“What’s wrong, Lee?”

"Nothing," Seunghoon keeps his voice casual, as though it’s just another question, and this is just another detention.

“Seunghoon,” Taehyun says, so softly, “what’s _wrong_?” His laugh sounds kind of cruel, like a hiss. “Or are you too shy to tell me?”

He's been planning this. Avoiding his eyes, waiting to get him alone- The fucker has been  _planning_ this.

“Fuck you, Nam,” Seunghoon spits, and suddenly he’s up, he’s got his wand drawn and his eyes are narrowed. It’s like the old days, when Seunghoon could barely move without a fist to his stomach. Taehyun's own wand is in his hand without so much as a second thought: there’s a metaphor here, Seunghoon thinks, boys and their wands, but he’s too focused on how red Taehyun’s mouth is to notice.

“You wanna?” Taehyun asks. “Or maybe,” he leans forward, not lowering his wand, “maybe it’s the other way around?”

"Fuck," Seunghoon says with Hufflepuff-slow precision, "you." 

“ _Langlock_ ,” Taehyun hisses. He’s fast, but Seunghoon’s Quidditch reflexes are faster: he ducks, and the jinx bounces harmlessly off the opposite wall.

Seunghoon doesn’t think: “ _Ventus_ ,” he yells, and the gust of wind pushes Taehyun into the desks behind him. He tumbles backwards, crashing to the ground.

Taehyun pushes himself off of the floor, leveling his wand at Seunghoon’s chest. “ _Locomotor Mortis_!” Seunghoon’s legs lock together. He falls to the ground with barely any time to catch himself, and then – “Don’t fucking move.” Taehyun is above him, panting, his wand pressing hard against Seunghoon’s temple.

“Do it,” Seunghoon whispers. “Do it, Nam, I _dare you_.”

Taehyun crouches down beside him. His smile is sharp, and the flush of crimson in his cheeks could almost be mistaken for blood. He’s not blushing sweetly now, not begging for Seunghoon’s favor. There’s Dark magic in Taehyun, and Seunghoon was an idiot to forget it.

“Say please,” Taehyun murmurs.

Seunghoon stares up at Taehyun, eyes wide, mouth parted. Taehyun will do it, he knows, and he knows, too, that some small, strange part of him _wants_ it.

“You have to decide, Lee. Do you wanna fuck me, or do you wanna punch me?”

“Why can’t it be both?” Seunghoon says. It comes out as a whine, but Taehyun’s eyes darken. _Right answer_ , Seunghoon thinks, but only for a moment, because then Taehyun is leaning forward, and he’s yanking Seunghoon up by the tie, and then - _oh_.

Seunghoon learns that he likes it when Taehyun bites down on his lip just light enough to leave it bruised. He likes it when Taehyun forces his knees apart so that he can rub against his cock, slow, gentle strokes with the tip of his thumb. When Taehyun palms the front of his trousers he makes little keening noises like he’s about to come undone, and he likes the way Taehyun laughs, amused, like he could spend all night drawing these small, shuddery noises out of Seunghoon’s mouth.

“I’ll make you a deal,” Taehyun pants when he’s got Seunghoon’s hand between his legs and his head thrown back, so that if Seunghoon was fast enough he could get at his throat in one clean sweep, “you stop trying to break my nose-“

“No deal,” Seunghoon mutters, tightening his grip in a way that makes Taehyun groan.

“- _You_ stop trying to break my nose, and I’ll keep doing _this_.” And then Taehyun reaches down, and then Seunghoon’s breath stutters, and then there’s nothing really he can say except yes, and yes, and yes.

 

Professor Kim comes back five minutes later. She shrieks, throws her hands across her face, and takes five hundred points from both their houses. Seunghoon would say it was worth it.

 

They still fight, of course they do, but there’s a spark to it now that nobody else quite catches. Taehyun sticks his foot out in the corridors so that Seunghoon goes flying face-first, and Seunghoon jinxes Taehyun’s Prefects badge so that it flashes _WANKER_ every time he tries to take points from Hufflepuff, and every few months they disappear and come back rumpled and lazy and Minho rolls his eyes.

And they’ll graduate in a year, and Seunghoon will go with the Magpies, or his father will put him into a cushy Ministry job where he’ll make a lot of money and he won’t advance. And Taehyun will do whatever the Nam heir does, or he’ll run away and disappear, or he'll get killed in the next War, the one that's coming and coming fast. And if they see each other they’ll smile, or maybe glare, or maybe draw their wands at once. And there will be no love lost, because it was never there to begin with.

But for now they fight, and they scratch, and they bleed. And sometimes Taehyun kisses him without teeth, or Seunghoon strokes his thumb over Taehyun’s lips, almost soft enough to be called gentle, and it feels like something it never was, and never really could be.


End file.
